Autumn

My first year in the desert, I found I was instinctively waiting for the changes that all my life had come with autumn: the crispness in the air, the changing colors of the leaves, the crunch of the leaves that had fallen beneath my feet. When those didn’t come, I felt a bit disconcerted, for all that I knew better than to expect them. Suddenly I found myself in December, not quite sure how I’d gotten there, the usual seasonal markers that lead me there gone. A few leaves turned quickly to brown and fell from some of the non-native trees near the end of the year; when snow was already falling in the places I’d lived before; but that was all.

Now, it’s very different. A few weeks ago, I noticed a coolness creeping into the night (not day yet) air. Ah, I thought, not needing to think about it, knowing instinctively: it’s almost autumn. The days lost their edge, turning from dragon’s breath hot to merely warm. The days have grown shorter, too; the angle of the sun has changed.

And the past few mornings, as I’ve been out walking or running, shivering a little in my summer workout clothes, I’ve looked to a sky turned a perfect clear deep shade of blue, the trees and agaves and palms and mountains all sharp against it. As I looked at that sky, I felt the same stirring–the same sense of change–I once felt as fallen leaves crunched beneath. Autumn. Of course it’s autumn, of course the world is turning. All the markers are here.

How could I once not have seen them?